Pensions dashboards: Delivering clarity or creating confusion?

When pension dashboards are launched savers will see the full picture of their pensions; but will they be left empowered or confused? Here’s how you can help provide clarity, control and confidence.

According to the Money and Pension Service (MaPS), how members feel about their retirement - their confidence, anxiety, their sense of control - will shape everything about how they interact with pensions dashboards. It will influence whether they log in at all, how they interpret what they see, and the decisions they make.

The starting point is stark:

More than 50% of UK adults aged 18-64 have no retirement plan
More than 46% do not save regularly
22.5 million people lack the knowledge to make informed retirement decisions

MaPS has categorised pension savers into five behavioural types based on their confidence and pro-activity.

The two groups most likely to use dashboards sit at opposite ends of the spectrum: those who are ‘confused and concerned’, we think of them as deer caught in headlights. Or, ‘confident and pro-active’, what we’ve called ‘eager eagles’. The challenge is that initial engagement won’t be driven by need alone. It will depend on awareness, trust and how easy dashboards are to access.

For some, dashboards will be a long-awaited moment of clarity. For others, they may simply expose how unprepared they feel.

A third of pension schemes managers expect at least 50% of their members to access the pensions dashboard within the first month, according to a survey of 68 pension professionals who attended WTW's webinar in April 2025.

But there’s a risk; if the next step from the pensions dashboard isn’t clear, consistent and actionable, members could quickly lose trust in the very system designed to empower them. Dashboards may open the door, but what happens after a member logs in will determine whether they feel clarity or confusion.

For schemes, the challenge is turning dashboards into a catalyst for clarity, control and confidence. To do that, we need to understand the behavioural biases that shape how people interpret information and make decisions. Three stand out.

Bias 1: Trust and transparency

Trust is more than a warm feeling, it’s a psychological anchor and a measure of safety and risk. When trust is high, perceived risk is lower. When financial literacy is low, trust often becomes a substitute for knowledge.

Evidence backs this up. A recent study in the Netherlands analysed 15 years of household wealth and survey data combined with pension savings data. It found that people who trust their pension provider are more likely to save more than the set minimum savings. And in the US, people with higher trust are more likely to make voluntary contributions to their 401ks.

But trust is fragile. It shifts with every experience. Pensions dashboards aim to build trust through transparency, but that trust will only hold if the journey from the dashboard to the scheme is simple, logical and reassuring.

Trustees will need to consider:

How members transition from dashboard to scheme
What support they receive at each step
How expectations are set
How financial literacy is strengthened

Support beyond dashboards will be essential. Trustees must understand how engaged their members are and tailor communication and education accordingly.

Bias 2: Choice overload and decision paralysis

If you’ve ever spent 20 minutes scrolling through Netflix only to give up finding what to watch, then you’ve experienced choice overload. A recent study showed most participants abandoned Netflix at some point because they couldn’t make a choice.

Pensions are no different. Too much choice can quickly lead to decision paralysis, where people feel overwhelmed and do nothing.

When members visit the pensions dashboard, they will face decisions about what to do next. Without support, many may freeze. Pension engagement is not a single action, it is a chain of behaviours. Trustees need to understand what support members need at each link to keep them moving forward.

People who say they have low financial literacy are more likely to be overwhelmed by choice.

Sometimes too few choices can also lead to indecision or inaction, highlighting the difficult task trustees have when thinking of the needs of all their members They will need to balance the needs of the confident eagles with those of the deers in the headlights and everyone in between.

Targeted, timely support on specific next steps can help members navigate their options with confidence.

Bias 3: Social norms

Human beings look to other when they’re unsure what to do. Social norms are powerful, particularly in unfamiliar situations or where a clear course of action is not known.

Trustees can use social norms to highlight desirable behaviours and encourage others to follow suit. We recently used this approach in a campaign encouraging members to complete nomination of beneficiary forms with great success, achieving a 77% completion rate. People often change their behaviour simply because it’s ‘what everyone else does’.

Used well social norms can guide members through decisions with greater confidence but they must be applied carefully to avoid straying into ‘advice’.